Tag: Astro

Liam Neeson fatigue.

I think we are all feeling it, and I think we are all sick of it.

I can’t even think of any original jokes about Neeson being some strange action/drama badass. At least I don’t think that A Walk Among The Tombstones features anyone in his family being in danger. Maybe. But it does have a terrible title.

The reason it took me so long to watch is due to how little I cared about his movies right now. What I guess I am really saying is that I am totally going to be biased with this review. I wish there was a way around it. The only solution I know is that Neeson just needs to fucking stop it for like. A year and a half. That will help.

How strong is my fatigue? I’d rather the kid sidekick character stay over Neeson.

Matt (Neeson) used to be a cop in the earl 90s, but isn’t anymore. Now it is the future. Now it is almost the year 2000! He is a recovering alcoholic and a nobody.

For some reason (I forgot), this guy Peter (Boyd Holbrook) comes up to him asking him to help out with a case. A case involving Peter’s brother, Kenny (Dan Stevens) a drug dealer. Doesn’t sound good. But what sounds worse is that Kenny’s wife was kidnapped. He had to pay $400,000 for the ransom, but it turns out they killed her anyways. So Kenny is mad and he wants revenge.

The only reason Matt accepts is because of the despicable acts they did. So he assumes they have done it before in the past and will keep on doing it. Might as well stop them.

He is going to get the help of local kid (Astro) too, even if he doesn’t want it!

And uhhh, the bad guys are played by Adam David Thompson and David Harbour. It isn’t a mystery, so that isn’t a spoiler.

“See, I picked a picture of them on the phone, because most of the this movie is just talking.” – Overly explains the plot dude.

A Walk Among The Tombstones is a dark movie. I don’t mean that necessarily in the adult subject matter way. No, I just feel like the entire thing takes place at night. I don’t think that is true, but I just can’t remember anything in particular that happened during the day.

So it has that gloomy feel the entire time. Aesthetically, it fits the mood it wants to show, but that doesn’t make it interesting.

Why? Because this film fucking drags. I have it tagged as an action movie, but that is definitely not its focus. This is hardcore, balls to the wall, in your face, drama. Not good drama. Just fucking talking and being an investigator and shit. Maybe like two action scenes both near the end.

And then it just dragged some more.

This movie might have been a good mystery novel or whatever the fuck it was. But hot damn, I’d be hard pressed to find a more boring cop/PI based movie from 2014.

At least Inherent Vice had…weirdness.

It is clear from the trailers of Earth To Echo that it is going for a modernized, new ET feel. Kids find an alien, government wants to get it, they want to help it get home.

But wait? Didn’t we just have another movie try that? Yeah, a few years ago, Super 8 tried to make a similar claim. And I loved Super 8, it just didn’t make a lot of money an people forgot about it, despite it being a very well shot film.

So instead I won’t think about it like a new ET. Mostly because I didn’t find ET enjoyable in the slightest. Let the alien + kid genre stand on its own, I say!

Kids these days. Playing outside with technology. What’s the world coming to?

Out of all the themes present in Earth To Echo, the largest and most pronounced must be the theme of friendship. This story is about three childhood friends who have grown up in a neighborhood together.

The three friends are Tuck (Astro), a guy who has an active youtube page so he makes sure to record a lot of his activities for hits. Aka, the reason we get a movie out of this. We have Munch (Reese Hartwig), a “weirdo” / mama’s boy who is into a lot more nerdier things and electronics. And we have Alex (Teo Halm), a foster kid who doesn’t come out of his shell too much. They have been best friends for many many years, and now they have to move away.

Why? Because they are building an interstate through their subdivision, and nothing can be done about it. So all of their parents are packing up to leave their Nevada home and never see each other again. But wait! Something weird is happening in the area. Phones are messing up and breaking. Actually, it seems as if the phones are showing a map to a location in the desert some 20 miles away.

Well, if they are all about to move, why not spend their last night together going on a treasure hunt and building lasting memories. Yay, memories.

Unfortunately, they get into a situation much greater than they bargained for, when they find alien life.

Don’t worry, this isn’t just a dude adventure (or a dudeventure). We got a chick, eventually, with Ella Wahlestedt, and the big bad government guy played by Jason Gray-Stanford.

Hey look! They almost made it so he could’t be easily turned into a toy. Almost.

The idea of a “shaky cam” movie scares a lot of people who think it is just a cheap gimmick. In this case, it adds a lot to the movie and only feels uncomfortable a few times near the beginning. Maybe a little bit too much bike offroading action, but other than that, it was really well done.

My main issues with Earth To Echo (outside of camera work) involve mostly technical issues. The timing of events in this movie seems to be all over the place, where they cram almost a whole day’s of activities into one night somehow. It took me out of the experience on more than one occasion.

But the film has a lot of positives!

First of all, it was actually pretty funny. The boys had great chemistry with each other, tons of jokes and amusing moments occurred throughout the film and I was laughing out loud on several occasions. Because their chemistry was so great, it of course awakened the nostalgia of hanging out with your neighborhood friends back in the day, doing dumb things to pass the time. Good times, and good feelings.

The film also had the necessary tense moments once things began to get too hard for the few kids to handle. With over half of the film set during the night time, it does certainly help for the scarier moments, and thankfully it never feels too dark to not see what is going on.

Overall, it ended up being pretty entertaining. The fact that it was about friendship first, and aliens second kind of give it a more personal and relatable feel. I guess I liked it better than Super 8, despite the ratings. Mostly because I haven’t watched Super 8 since I saw it for the first time (and it is still very pretty), but I can see myself seeing Earth To Echo over and over.